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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28506501">There are No Stars (but the night is illuminated by your eyes)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction'>HolmesianDeduction</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Don't copy to another site, Gen, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Change, post episode 160, the change</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-02</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 18:36:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>643</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28506501</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/HolmesianDeduction/pseuds/HolmesianDeduction</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>[Title courtesy of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansypool/pseuds/tansypool">Tansypool</a> who sent it to me for a 'describe the fic you would write with this title' meme...except I wrote the fic.]</p><p>Not long [hypothetically] after they set out towards London, Martin asks some pertinent questions about the nature of the sky overhead.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Martin Blackwood &amp; Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>There are No Stars (but the night is illuminated by your eyes)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/tansypool/gifts">tansypool</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            “Jon?”</p><p>            “Yes Martin?” Jon didn’t turn his head. Martin wouldn’t be able to see his eyes in the dark necessarily, but he would know that he was being looked at, so he didn’t look. It was…<em>god, how many days had it been</em> – Martin kept saying it was three days, but Jon wasn’t certain – he <em>would</em> be, if days meant anything concrete anymore, but they didn’t, so he wasn’t. Martin had insisted on sleeping at night – at when he estimated to be night, and Jon hadn’t fought him on it. Why take away any semblance of normalcy that he didn’t have to?</p><p>            “Jon, are you listening?”</p><p>            He had not been. Not properly anyway. He let himself fill the silence with a sigh. “No, I’m sorry. Say again?”</p><p>            “I was just saying – there aren’t any stars any more, are there?”</p><p>            “Hm. We–”</p><p>            “Like they’re not just hidden, are they? They’re <em>gone</em>.”</p><p>            Jon looked up at the sky – well, at the space – above them. It was dark here, though that was less to do with anything like time of day or movement of the spheres than the fact that this particular area was dark, and was so in every direction for as far as could be seen with the naked eye. Finally, he dampened his lips and replied, “I guess it would be more accurate to say they were never there.”</p><p>            “<em>What?</em>” Martin’s sputtered response was predictable. Completely understandable, mind you, but also predictable. “<em>Never there</em>? They <em>were there</em>, Jon. And now they’re not.”</p><p>            “<em>I</em> know that, Martin. As do you.” He took a moment to process what he was about to say, “but for all intents and purposes, in this…<em>new</em> world…they never existed except as strange, faulty snippets of memory.”</p><p>            Martin settled down beside him, glancing at him sideways. “Right. What with the whole ‘rewriting reality’ thing.”</p><p>            “Mmhm.” There was another silence, and if he didn’t know better, he might have assumed his partner was trying to get back to sleep. “What is it?”</p><p>            “Don’t answer this, because I know the answer already but did it <em>have</em> to be replaced with…well…”</p><p>            “Eyes?” Jon opened his own again, and a few of the vaguely ocular shapes in the sky flicked towards him.</p><p>            “Yeah. That.” There was another lapse into silence, the only sound around them the vaguest thrum of – of something – in the trees around them. Willing himself to breathe, Jon closed his eyes again – it wasn’t sleep but maybe the illusion of sleep would make the time pass more quickly. “Jon.”</p><p>            He didn’t open his eyes. “Yes?”</p><p>            “The eyes–”</p><p>            Jon sat bolt upright. “What about them?”</p><p>            “What, I–” Martin sat up and blinked for a moment, then shook his head, “No, they’re not <em>doing </em>anything. I was just thinking.”</p><p>            “Oh.” He didn’t bother disguising the relief. “What about?”</p><p>            “Well. They’re all, you know, tied to the Beholding.”</p><p>            “I…yes?”</p><p>            “And to you and Eli–Jona–Elias.”</p><p>            “Yes, I suppose that’s true.”</p><p>            “Which ones are yours?”</p><p>            “I…<em>what</em>?”</p><p>            Martin gestured up to the sky. “They can’t all be his, so is there any way to tell which ones are yours?”</p><p>            Jon looked up at the sky.</p><p>            The sky looked back.</p><p>            “Martin?”</p><p>            “Mn?”</p><p>            “Go back to sleep.” Martin opened his mouth, and Jon held up a hand. “<em>Please</em>.”</p><p>            Pulling a face, Martin looked as though he might argue for a moment, but then sighed and laid back down, adjusting the backpack under his head. “You can talk about these things to me, you know.”</p><p>            “I know, Martin. I do.”</p><p>            As the silence – relative silence anyway – closed in around them, Jon’s gaze strayed back to the sky and its innumerable eyes. All of them were his. All of them belonged to Elias – to Jonah Magnus. In this, at least, they were the same.</p><p>            Jon closed his eyes and tried not to think about it.</p>
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